“The horses will walk right by the bermudagrass pasture and go to the Teff. They prefer it and do very well on it,” she said.

Anderson, from Sanger, Calif., is a senior plant health major at California State University. She first saw Teff at college where CSUF is testing the annual grass under center pivot irrigation at the school’s northeast Fresno farm.

Cal/West Seeds, Woodland, Calif., is distributing Teff and is working with CSUF in demonstrating and evaluating its value.

Jack Griffin, regional sales manager for Producer’s Choice Seed, is marketing Teff and said there are about 2,000 acres of it now planted in the central San Joaquin Valley. There are about 250,000 acres planted nationwide.

Anderson pastures her horses on 16 acres, 13 of which were planted to Teff last year. Alfalfa is the most commonly fed horse forage. Wheat, oat and barley hay also are other horse hay choices.

Horses are grazing animals. They need a high-fiber, low carbohydrate diet containing 8 percent to 10 percent protein to keep the gut working on a continuous basis. Horses that receive insufficient amounts of fiber are more likely to develop colic, due to obstructions not moving through the intestines properly.

Alfalfa’s high protein content can also cause a horse to colic or founder. Hay that is mostly or all alfalfa can only be fed to horses in very small amounts. Alfalfa hay generally contains more calories and less fermentable fiber per pound than grasshay. Therefore, stalled horses fed alfalfa are given fewer pounds of hay per day and spend less time eating than horses consuming grass hay.

Horse owners are well aware that grazing horses on alfalfa also can cause colic.

Colic is a deadly disease for horses. Horses die of colic more than any other cause of death.

“You can spend $10,000 on vet bills to try to save a horse from dying of colic and still watch it die,” said Anderson.

Discuss this Article 16

Anonymous (not verified)

on Nov 23, 2010

Tiffany Teff has been used with much success throughout the US. Penn State recently conducted a horse feeding trial using Tiffany Teff Grass with very favorable results. Yields have been reported from 1 1/2-3 tons per cutting. There have been reports of poor stands following triticale.

I have an insulin reistant horse that did really well on Teff as a suppliment to a low carbohydrate pellet last season. I cannot find a distributor from which to purchase it this year. We are in the San Jose area. If you have some for sale, please email me.

We need a load of Tiff hay but would like some for our members to try as soon as we can get it. We’re a 100% member owned non-profit hay co-op in the Temecula Valley area of Southern California and I found a message about Teff hay I wanted to ask you about whether anybody here can help us. We're on Facebook as Valley Co-op

Would you please send me some information on how to form a non-profit hay co-op...several horse owners up here as well as a couple of rescue/sanctuaries could really benefit by putting something like that together. Thank you!